Poetry Will Come

We need rice, salt, chilly, firewood; we can do without poetry. Yet poetry will come back like rice, the seed of the earth, boiled and cleaned of husk and bran, overflowing every measure every granary and godown; like salt, the memory of the sea, watering our mouths, burning us with pain in order to heal our wounds, nourishing our roots; like chilly, the lust of the clay, turning hot our lips, tongues, breasts, waists, veins and nerves; like the firewood, the bones of the forest, their marrow melting sizzling burning slow with tiny flames, chanting, in a single breath, rice salt chilly firewood poetry. (Translated from Malayalam by the poet)